Category Archives: The Molokai Dispatch

Molokai Renewables wind developers planned to host an open-house discussion about the proposed wind turbines project last Tuesday, but community members interrupted their agenda. Taking bold steps to express their mana`o, anti-wind supporters of the Molokai group I Aloha Molokai (IAM) ignored informational posters sitting on tables, except to draw large red Xs through two.

“Cut the crap and get to the point,” IAM organizer Kanohowailuku Helm said as he stood up during Molokai Renewables’ introduction. He walked over to each of the developers in the audience, handing them Ziploc baggies filled with coins. “What’s it gonna cost you guys to leave us alone?” Continue reading →

More than half of Kalaupapa’s 100 residents turned out in support of their tiny post office last week, when United States Postal Service (USPS) representatives visited the settlement to discuss its potential closure.

The post office is one of four in the state and nearly 4,000 nationwide targeted for review as the USPS faces an unprecedented financial crisis. USPS is currently gathering community feedback and financial information for all post offices under consideration. Continue reading →

“No dog is worth your life,” says Kaimana He, sitting in front of his house. Small scratches are faintly visible on his face; in the sun, the remnants of bruises are fading around his ribs.

His mother, Tina He-Lindsey, agrees.

“Even with the most experienced people, accidents still happen,” she says.

The pair knows what they’re talking about. It was only weeks earlier that He-Lindsey came home to a jolting phone call from family friend Dolphin Pawn: While trying to retrieve his dogs on a hunting trip with friends through Waialeia Valley that morning, Kaimana had fallen off a ledge more than 40 feet. He had a large gash on his forehead; the full extent of his injuries was unknown. Pawn, who was hunting with a separate party, stumbled across the boys and used his dogs’ GPS collars to pinpoint Kaimana’s location. Continue reading →

Nancy Cooke de Herrera sat on the floor of her son’s home in the early 2000s, her only companions a black lab and 27 piles of paper around her. Each pile represented a chapter – including one detailing her first visit to India, and another recounting the time she met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the father of Transcendental Meditation (TM). There was even a pile that would later be titled “The Beatles Invade the Ashram.”

After isolating herself in Oregon and churning out the 27 piles, she moved them around to determine their order, wrote four additional chapters, and in 2003 published “All You Need Is Love,” a true account of TM’s spread from the East to the West and her own role therein.

Cooke de Herrera – who married into Molokai’s Cooke family in the 1940s and raised three sons on Molokai – had never much liked writing, she said. But friends convinced her to write a book because, at the time, there were none about TM – a mantra form of meditation that, unlike some, does not require giving up worldly possessions. Over the years, she has taught TM to such celebrities as Madonna, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rosie O’Donnell, Lenny Kravitz and Sheryl Crow, among others.

“When it’s day by day your own life, it doesn’t sound extraordinary. I know that looking back on it, some of it’s kind of unusual,” she said after a presentation at the Molokai Public Library Thursday. Continue reading →

Noel Tancayo may be only 9 years old, but she’s no stranger to rodeos. The youngster won her ninth buckle at the 56th annual Makawao Rodeo during the July 4th weekend, placing first in the junior keiki barrel event and fourth in open wahine division.

“It’s actually pretty fun ‘cause you just experience riding a horse, and you feel like you’re falling off but you’re not,” she said.

Tancayo was one of four Molokai youth who participated in the rodeo, hosted by the Maui Roping Club at Oskie Rice Arena on Maui. The Friendly Isle was represented by Meleana Pa-Kala, 10; Jayden Tabilangan, 12; and Kapua Lee, 12. About 10 Molokai adults also competed, according to Molokai participant Sale Sproat.One of only six wahine who finished in the 19-second range in the open division, the 61-pound Tancayo made her mark among nearly 40 participants – and onlookers noticed.

“She’s this little tiny girl out there flying around the barrels,” said her mother, Sherry Tancayo. “She gets a lot of crowd reception.” Continue reading →

They came from across Polynesia: some from Tahiti or Fiji, some from Samoa or the Cook Islands. And for two months, they traveled more than 15,000 miles across open ocean, stopping in places like Auckland, Fakarava, Nuku Hiva, or surrounded by only deep blue water. They relied on wind to fill their sails, sun to power their engines, and little other than stars and birds to guide their canoes.

And although many of the Pacific Voyager sailors had never been to Molokai before, last week, they said they came home.

Seven voyaging canoes, or vaka moanas, were greeted by hundreds of Molokai community members at Kaunakakai Wharf last Thursday. Their journey, named “Te Mana o Te Moana” meaning “Spirit of the Sea,” set course from New Zealand in April. They arrived in Hilo June 17, stopping on Maui before voyaging to the Friendly Isle.

“Coming in [to Molokai], the warmth of the people is there from the beginning,” said Duncan Morrison, the captain for the Haunui vaka, one of two Pan-Pacific canoes on the trip. “It’s very open and welcoming. For someone who comes in as a stranger, it’s beautiful to feel like you’re coming home. It’s really a homecoming of the heart.” Continue reading →